


Bury A Friend

by stranger_things123



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Child Abuse, Gay Billy Hargrove, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, Post-Season/Series 03, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-25 02:35:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20716676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stranger_things123/pseuds/stranger_things123
Summary: Billy Hargrove has been trapped in a Russian Prison for 11 months. Maxine has discovered the monsters that live inside her house. Pain and chaos insue - the party begins to fall apart.Warning: This is very dark. There is references to suicical thoughts and self-harm, as well as abuse. Also homophobia, racism, and sexism. So needless to say - trigger warning.





	Bury A Friend

BILLY.

I think I’m going crazy.

The months have strung by and now I’m beginning to forget. My past has become blurry and the pain that was so indefinite before has suddenly become a memory. And I find myself missing it. Feeling numb in it’s absence, and strange. The normality of my life ripped away. And the sharp edge of a rock that had fallen from the wall of my cell has become my addiction. And soon my body - already ugly from the slashed scars across my stomach, is littered with cuts. It started with my arms, lines of blood sprung from my skin. A desperate attempt to reach the normality I had lost here. A desperate attempt to feel. And then as the months continued to rush by my body became a canvas for pain. And as morbid as it sounds, as sad as it makes me feel to say - for the first time in my life I feel like myself. Like the things I have always felt are finally seen by the world. Until the cuts begin to have meaning. And the guilt of leaving Max behind with my monster creeps into my head when the blood drips from my flesh. When the feeling rises and I hold the sharp edge in the wrong direction, too much of a coward to cut that way, to high to forget that I want to. And when my arms and thighs are littered with pain I begin to need more. I begin to miss the bruises on my skin, the cut lips and the hazy feeling you get when your head hits the floor. I begin to miss his voice - and as much as that disgusts me, I thrive in it. He always said what I knew already. And I hated the feeling of having to hear it in my own voice. That my self-hatred could no longer be attributed to his presence, because even in his absence my hatred is overwhelming and true. And my anger is only derived from the fact it is fleeting. And the fact the fury I hold in my stomach is beginning to drain with every tear I shed and grow into desperation and sadness. Into pure unbridled disgust for my life. And the conflict I have when I wonder if he misses me, if he has ever felt any love for me. If he’s hurting Max. And the disgust grows when I think I hope that he is. Just so I know that it wasn’t me. Because if he hurt me because that is the way he is - a psychopathic angry monster - that is something I can live with. If he hurt me because he hated me, and only me, I think that would be his biggest blow. The knowledge that only I was worthless enough for his wrath, that only I deserved the pain.

My father liked to torture me in ways I have to admit were brilliant. Making it so that everything I did was with him in mind. Every step and every word, remembering the consequences of fucking up. Swallowing my anger around him and letting everyone else I saw drown in it. Building a tough shell only he could break. I began to wear my shirt unbuttoned so that he couldn’t touch that part of me. I taught myself how to cook and clean with military precision and it grew into an obsessive need for control. That need spread - till every part of me needed things to have order. Time became my obsession, things needed order to avoid the inevitable destruction of my soul. Food needed order. Workouts needed order. Cleaning and cooking and fucking and showing and going to school and panic attacks. All needed order. The irony is that nothing can have order to a complete extent, nothing can be perfect. But I needed it to be so it became that way. And certain foods became off limits and my workout routine became gruelling and daily. I told myself I needed to be strong so I can defend myself against assholes who think they could get to me. So I could be a man. And every-time I failed at these expectations I had of myself I felt my body go haywire - and everything felt wrong. And I had to hit something. But everything always felt wrong, because my muscles were useless when my brain would tell them not to move. When he stood above me and I could see his boot landing down my stomach, and I would tell myself to fight - because I knew I was stronger then him, but I just couldn’t move. I screamed at myself to fight. But my body wouldn’t listen. And my control would be stripped away, and I would react with extreme measures to regain it. Prove to another kid at school that I was better than him, not eat for days just to have a choice, lift heavier weights to prove to myself I wasn’t weak. That life was fine. I was too focused on perfection to think about why I needed it. But now I’m alone in a dark, damp cell and all I can think about is how much I want to fucking die.

MAX.

I found Billy’s first aid kit two months after he died. Neil had asked me to clean out his room. It was this big red duffel bag, filled with aid that no normal person has in their house. Stuff you find at a hospital. Suture kits and disinfectant - a whole array of creams and pain killers. I hid it under my bed - just in case the monsters every came back. It’s been 11 months since he died and the gate is still closed, the mind flayer still trapped in to the Upside Down, but I found new monsters. My body used to be clean, pale skin and sun spots. But now my body has bruises on it, and I feel as though I’ve lost myself. My skateboard and jeans have been traded out for a bike and skirts and dresses - feminine attire as Neil calls it. Before I didn’t understand why Billy was so incessantly angry, but now, now I understand. Because I can feel it, I feel it brewing in my stomach until it one day someone says one wrong thing, or bumps into me in the hallway and I just snap. I’ve began wearing Billy’s leather jacket - just to feel close to him. I can’t wear it outside - so I huddle it over me in the night, wetting it with tears. I stopped talking to the rest of the party a couple months ago - Lucas and I broke up after Neil found out. I got a beating, Lucas got heartbreak. For a couple weeks he assumed it was a blip - but it wasn’t. It lasted. And then slowly the rest of my friends began to break off. Now when I see them at school they stare - hoping I say hello, respond, smile. But I don’t. I just walk away, quiet and fast. They tried to confront me about it a couple weeks ago, held me to the wall and demanded I say something. I screamed, and when they wouldn’t let go I hit Mike. It was like everything my body had told me to do stopped - and my anger took over. I wasn’t in control, I don’t remember what happened after that. I was just suddenly at home, waiting to be called to dinner.  
The first time Neil had ever hit me I was shocked. I knew he was mean to Billy, but I never thought the bruises on his skin came from Neil. I understood after that. After I arrived late from school to find Neil holding a beer in his hands, sitting, waiting for me in his big leather chair. A grim snarl on his face as his eyes tore into me. I greeted him, headed off to my room, but he stopped me. I was confused - but there is no time for confusion in that kind of moment. No time for confusion when suddenly your back is against the wall and all you can hear is the sound of your heartbeat pounding in your ears. It was bad because I couldn’t listen, and for the first time I put that first aid kit to use. Now however, I know what to say. I know what to do to make sure I don’t cry, how to bend my body so he cant hit my vital organs, how to shut my eyes and imagine something else. I always imagine Billy, I imagine him yelling at me, telling me to stop dating Lucas, telling me to get my ass home on time, telling me. And I feel such wrenching guilt. I know it’s irrational - I couldn’t have known. But now when I remember those words - those warnings, I see the pleading in his eyes. I feel the blows he must of taken when he got the blame for something I had done. I think it hurts worse than the hits in some ways. I wish Billy would come back. So he could take it instead of me. That thought makes me hate myself more than Neils venom-laced words do. And that hate is growing. And now I’ve began to fear heights and knives - afraid not of their danger in another’s hands, but their danger in my own.


End file.
